♂Thomas Cushman

Thomas Cushman was a son of Thomas Cushman (1607–1691), ruling elder of the Plymouth church, and of Mary Allerton (1617–1699). He was the seventh great-grand-uncle of Frederic Roger Curtis (1928–2007), the brother of Isaac Cushman (1648–1732), Roger’s seventh great-grandfather.

Early life and first marriage

A compiled account says that his mother, Mary Allerton, was the last of the Mayflower passengers to die. Two compilations of Mayflower families, by Roser and by Wakefield, place his birth at Plymouth about September 1637 and list him first among the children of the elder and Mary Allerton. Both give his first marriage as 17 November 1664, at Plymouth, to Ruth Howland, a daughter of the Mayflower passengers John Howland and Elizabeth Tilley. Wakefield adds that John Howland’s will of 29 May 1672 still names his daughter Ruth Cushman.

Wakefield also reports that on 7 March 1664/5, a few months after the wedding, Thomas was fined for having had relations with Ruth before their marriage, though after their contract. The same compilation puts the births of Ruth’s children at Plymouth between about 1664 and about 1670, among them a son Robert, a daughter Desire and a son Thomas. When Ruth’s mother, Elizabeth Howland, made her will on 17 December 1686, she named her granddaughter Desire Cushman in her will.

Second marriage

Two compilations give Ruth’s death as before 16 October 1679, the day Thomas married Abigail (Titus) Fuller at Rehoboth. Abigail was born at Rehoboth on 18 February 1652/3, the daughter of John Titus and Abigail Carpenter, and had married John Fuller there in 1673. Wakefield gives her and Thomas four sons: Job, born about 1680, and Bartholomew, Samuel and Benjamin, baptized in 1684, 1687 and 1691. The family tree on this site records no children for Thomas.

Later years

When his father made his will on 22 October 1690, it named Thomas first among his four sons, charged each of them to pay twenty shillings to their sisters Sarah Hoaks and Lydia Harlow, and made Thomas and Isaac two of its three supervisors. An addition of 1691 to the will directed that “the son Thomas Cushman and my son Isaac Cushman” should have the hundred acres in question.

The two compilations agree that Thomas died at Plympton on 23 August 1726, aged 89 “wanting a month”. Abigail outlived him; she died at Attleborough on 31 May 1734.

Notes

The family tree on this site holds no birth, death, second marriage or children for him, and none for Ruth Howland’s death. The dates above are those of the two compilations. Roser prints his name with a query mark, and Wakefield dates the birth only approximately. The 1664 marriage and the second marriage are cited there to the Plymouth Colony records (volume 8 of the printed series).

Wakefield gives Robert’s birth as 4 October 1664 but notes that the date was worked back from his age at death and is probably a year early; Hunter’s Howland genealogy gives about 1664.